Baseball Statistics Have Gone Too Far

Several confessions. I am the son of a mathematician, was a superlative math student in high school, a math major in college, and continue to await the Putnam exam every year for some new problems to solve. A corollary. I also pitched until I left high school, loved baseball as my first sport, played catch with my father every viable night from age 3 to age 13, and wanted to be a Major League statistician from 4th grade to 7th grade.

Now I read baseball stories referencing statistics and have no fucking clue what they're talking about. The impetus for this rant is the following:

"The Cardinals' offense averaging 7.0 runs created/game and starting rotation have been enough to overcome anticipated weakness in bullpen (4.62 FIP)."

FIP? Fielding... Fantasy... After some internet research, apparently this is some way to adjust ERA for bad defense. Despite being hosted by "Rotosavants" and providing the mathematical equation to calculate said formula, no FIP acronymic explanation is provided. I refuse to look any further. (If you think it's 'fielding independent pitching' that makes no sense. It'd have to be PIF.) If you've lost me, you've probably lost everyone. Who in God's name knows what a 4.7 FIP means.